In the midst of everything else I missed that the Congress passed and the President signed a bill that eliminates the five month waiting period for Disability Insurance Benefits for those found disabled due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Can somebody explain to me why those with ALS receive this break but not people suffering from terminal cancer? I’ve had the experience of explaining to my sister that there was no point in her applying for Social Security disability benefits because she wouldn’t live long enough to collect them so, yes, this feels personal to me.
10 comments:
1.). ALS has a far more influential lobbying group.
2.). Past studies have consistently argued against removing the 5 month waiting period and 24 month Medicare waiting period because of the increased costs to the Medicare Trust fund. One study estimated the cost increase to be 43 percent in 1989 (Social Security Bulletin May 1989, plume 52 No. 5).
There really is not a moral argument for it, but when it comes to insurance it always comes down to the numbers.
Anon 8:22 "Past studies have consistently argued against removing the 5 month waiting period and 24 month Medicare waiting period because of the increased costs to the Medicare Trust fund. One study estimated the cost increase to be 43 percent in 1989 (Social Security Bulletin May 1989, plume 52 No. 5)."
Thank you. I never found a tangible reason for the Medicare waiting period. I know it was about saving money. Now, have you ever found anything where the SSA tried to justify these waiting periods?
The concept for the waiting period was that most employees had short-term disability coverage for up to 6 months, from the state or a private carrier.
@8:22
How would removing a 5 month waiting period result in a 43 percent cost increase? Unless the average duration a recipient is receiving benefits was something like 1 year, that doesn't seem logical, and I don't think that's ever been the average.
Unless it's referring to administrative costs? Still seems weird.
Answer 1 nailed it. Better lobbying and no rational basis at all.
I am sorry Charles. There is no rational reason.
On the other hand, my BIL just hit the SSDI/Medicare jackpot. 6 months after stopping work due to worsening health conditions, he went on dialysis. Medicare starts now! Whoo Hoo! Makes no sense that kidney dialysis gets bumped up but not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
anon@2:51pm,
Kidney disease was added in 1972, back when politicians were a little more reasonable.
Today, it takes pretty much an Act of God to get them to consider anything like this. The ALS exceptions have been pursued for years and years by the ALS lobby. In truth, ALS isn't any more deserving than the various terminal cancers, but as anon@8:22pm points out they had a much more effective lobby. It is also a disease with a far more limited population and is ALWAYS fatal (limiting the long term financial outlays) versus cancer, so Congress by adding this exception is able to milk the good publicity at a bargain basement price.
ALS is one disease. Terminal cancer isn't. The prognosis for ALS is a lot more definite than terminal cancer. There are experimental cures for "terminal cancer" that can be somewhat effective. There may be changes in the law for specific cancers that have a path like ALS sometime in the future but I would think it would be one or two types of cancer at a time. And ALS has a better lobbyist.
Probably a factor is ALS was named after the famous baseball player Lou Gehrig. He was a beloved N.Y. Yankee. This was enacted around the 1950s so his death was fairly fresh as the quintessential disabled person. Pretty sure this had something to do with it.
It should also be pointed out the infamous bucket challenge of 2014 gave ALS over 100 million dollars in donations and a ton of publicity. They have used the money wisely to advocate for their cause.
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